Regular equities or Mutual Funds (Balanced, Index, Growth, Aggressive?)?

Im thinking of just buying $2000 worth of S&P 500 spiders (SPY), it seems like they might be better than an actual S&P 500 index fund. If you look at the track record of the 500, its at about 11% a year. Thats far better than 99% of portfolio managers can do (not including private hedge funds, which do extremely well but cost upwards of 100K to get into.)

Whats in your Roth?

The other 3% have the time and inclination to do legitimate research into specific companies and buy individual stocks. (does not include folks who buy stocks because everyone else does, or because that's the local company, or because the read something somewhere)

Mutual funds and index funds are for everyone else, but mutual funds rarely outperform their targeted industries/purposes. Index funds ARE the market, so there's no guesswork or "expertise" (which rarely is) imbedded. You do exactly as well as the index does, minus fees which are typically much much less than those for mutual funds. Relatively low-risk & low-reward, but the "low-reward" is that you'll only do as well as the targeted index, which for the S&P 500 & Dow is still much better than CDs, bonds, Treasuries, etc. The low risk is compared to mutual funds (which are handcuffed by 1] the rules of that fund, and 2] the knowledge of the manager) and individual stocks (which with proper research are less risky, but for most people are much more risky, and subject to the unforseeable to a greater degree).

But that's just my opinion and I am not an expert to any degree in the stock market (which is why I take this approach).